Tube socket



Nov. 8, 1960 M, HLEE 2,959,762.

TUBE SOCKET Filed Oct. 15, 1959 F IG. 3

I I 6 I5 I I re 5 n 71 H INVENTOR MATTHEW SCHLEE H l S ATTORNEY UnitedStates Patent TUBE SOCKET Matthew Schlee, Liverpool, N.Y., assignor toGeneral Electric Company, a corporation of New York Filed Oct. 15, 1959,Ser. No. 846,604

8 Claims. (Cl. 339-193) This invention relates to tube sockets, and moreparticularly to tube sockets of the type which are adapted for use inassemblies where connections are made by wrapping wire several timesabout terminals instead of soldering it thereto.

The use of the type of connection wherein a wire to be connected to aterminal is mechanically and electrically secured thereto by wrapping ittightly around the terminal several times is quite wide spread, beingused to some extent in the manufacture of television receiver sets andthe like. This type of connection, known as a wire-wrap connection, isused to eliminate hand crimping and soldering of connections and hasalready proved itself to be a reliable and suitable means of connectionfor many purposes.

A substantial amount of difiiculty has, however, been encountered inattempting to apply the wire-wrap connection approach to terminals oftube sockets. This results, briefly, from the fact that thecharacteristics required for a member intended to grip and beelectrically secured to the pin of a tube and those required for theportion of the terminal which is intended to be wire-wrapped are verydifferent. The type of material needed for the pin socket proper must berelatively thin, hard, and resilient so that without fracturing it willyield slightly when the tube pin is inserted while at the same timeclamping tightly onto the pin. A specific material which has been foundto give the desired results is, for instance, spring brass, easilyachieved by a rolling operation, the material being on the order of 10to 12 thousandths of an inch in thickness. The terminal which is to bewire-wrapped, on the other hand, needs to be quite thick because of thefact that the wrapping of wires around the terminal is inherently arelatively violent mechanical procedure and substantial rigidity (of thetype which must necessarily be lacking in the tube socket proper) isnecessary. A further needed attribute of the wire-wrap portion of theterminal is that it should be quite soft relative to the type ofmaterial used for the pin socket itself, so that the wire wrapped aroundthe terminal will actually bite into the edges of the terminal to give agood electrical connection. A specific material that has been foundeffective in this connection is a rectangular section of quarter hardbrass whose dimensions may, for instance, be on the order of .032 by.060 inch.

The fact that two entirely different sets of characteristics arerequired, one at that part of the terminal which engages the tube pinand one at the part of the terminal which is to be wire-wrapped, hasmade it most difiicult to provide a tube socket suitable forwire-wrapping at a reasonably economical price.

It is therefore an object of this invention to provide an improved tubesocket which is suitable for wirewrapping purposes while retaining thenecessary resilient clamping characteristics insofar as the pinretaining portion is concerned.

A further object of the invention is to achieve this Patented Nov. 8,1960 goal by the provision of a tube socket wherein the wirewrapterminal portion is provided by a separate piece of the desiredcharacteristics which is locked in a keyway formed in the socket, and iscontiguous to part of the pin contact terminal so that when wire iswrapped around the wire-wrap terminal it will, by its own action, securethe wire-wrap terminal portion and the pin contact terminal portiontogether electrically.

In one aspect of my invention I provide a tube socket which has theordinarily provided body section of rigid insulating material with aplurality of recesses formed in one face thereof, and with a pluralityof openings communicating with the recesses. In each recess there isprovided a contact terminal made of thin resilient metal and formed andpositioned in the recesses so as to electrically and mechanically engagea tube pin inserted in that recess. Each of the contact terminals has,in the usual manner, a portion extending out from the openingcommunicating with that recess. In addition, as an essential feature ofmy invention, I incorporate in the body section of the socket aplurality of keyways each having a locking indentation formed therein.Associated with each keyway is a wire-Wrap terminal formed of relativelythick soft metal which has a projecting tab locked in the indentation ofthe keyway. Each wirewrap terminal also has a portion extending from thekeyway and provided with the necessary sharp edges as described above.The extending portion of each of the pin contact terminals is formedsubstantially parallel and contiguous to the extending portion of one ofthe wire- Wrap terminals.

With this construction, when the wire-wrap terminal receives the wire,the coiling of the wire about the terminal holds the extending portionof the contact terminal rigidly to the extending portion of thewire-wrap terminal, in good mechanical and electrical securementthereto.

The subject matter which constitutes my invention is particularlypointed out and distinctly claimed in the concluding portion of thisspecification. The invention, together with further objects andadvantages thereof, may best be understood by reference to the followingdescription taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawing.

In the drawing, Figure l is an elevational view of the pin receivingface of a tube socket constructed in accordance with my invention;

Figure 2 is an elevational view of the opposite side of the improvedtube socket of my invention from that, shown in Figure 1;

Figure 3 is a view along line 33 in Figure 1; and

Figure 4 is an enlarged fragmentary view of a portionof the socket asshown in Figure 3, with wire wrapped on the terminals to show the devicein actual use.

Referring now to the figures of the drawing, there is shown a tubesocket having a body section 1 composed of a suitable rigid insulatingmaterial such as, for instance, molded phenolic resin. Body section 1may be formed in the conventional manner by mo ding, or by any otherdesign process. The conventional socket, as shown, may have a generallyannular body section provided with a central opening 2 whichincorporates a keyway 3 for the purpose of correctly positioning thealigning plug of a tube (not shown) whose pins are to be inserted in therecesses 4 of the insulating body section. Positioned within each recessis a contact terminal 5 intended to receive and secure electrically andmechanically a tube pin inserted in the socket. While the precise shapeof contact terminal 5 may be varied considerably, a shape generally suchas that shown wherein the contact terminal is generally annular innature, with possibly a necked-down section 6 and a split or opening 7,is preferred. The split 7 permits a limited amount of expansion when apin is forced into the contact terminal while at the same time theinherent resilience of the material of which each contact terminal 5 isformed (such as spring brass for instance) causes the terminal to enterinto tight mechanical and electrical engagement with the pin at thenecked down portion 6.

The base of each recess 4 communicates with an opening 7' which extendsthrough to the opposite face 8 of the body section 1 from the face 9toward which the recesses open. Referring particularly to Figure 3, itcan be seen that an extension 1% of the contact terminal 5 extends downthrough opening 7 and merges into a portion 11 extending parallel andcontiguous to face 8 of body section 1; portion 11 in turn merges into aportion 12 extending beyond the confines of the body section 1 of thesocket. It will readily be understood that the. contact terminal 5 andthe additional portions thereof 10, 11 and 12 represent normally asingle piece of thin sheet material whose characteristics are tailoredas described to the need for resilient clamping engagement of a pinwithin each contact terminal 5.

Body section 1 of the tube socket is also provided with a number ofrectangular keyways 13 which, as can best be seen in Figures 3 and 4,extend substantially parallel to the recesses 4. It will further beobserved that there is one keyway 13 for each recess 4, each keywaybeing preferably positioned in radial alignment with its associatedrecess as appears in Figure 1. In each of the keyways 13 there isinserted a terminal member 14 of the type intended to receive wirewrapped around it in order to obtain good electrical and mechanicalconnection. Such a terminal is an elongated member of preferablysubstantial cross section and formed of not too hard a material withrelatively sharp edges so that when wire is wrapped tightly around it itwill bite into the edges of the member 14 and provide the desired goodelectrical and mechanical securement. Each of the members 14 has a baseportion 15 which extends into a keyway 13. A tab 16 is formed out of thesection 15 and when terminal 14 is in position in the keyway tab 16cooperates with a tab retaining indentation 17 formed in the keyway toretain the terminal therein.

Each of the terminals 14 has a wire receiving part 18, preferablyrectangular in cross-sectional configuration, which extends asubstantial distance out of keyway 13 from face 8 of the body sectionand which has, as described above, relatively sharp edges as shown forinstance by the edges 19 of one of the terminals 14 in Figure 3. It willbe recalled that each keyway is radially aligned with one of therecesses 4. Because of this, and because of the radially outwardlyextending portion 11 of contact terminal member 5, the extending portion12 of each terminal 5 extends not only substantially parallel to theextending portion 18 of terminal member 14 but also substantiallycontiguous thereto. Thus, referring to Figure 4, it will be seen thatwhen wire such as that shown by the numeral 20 is wrapped tightly aroundthe base of the extending portion 18 of a terminal 14 it not only willprovide a good electrical and mechanical connection between the wire andthe member 14 but it will also tightly bind the extending portion 12 ofterminal 5 to the extending portion 1% of terminal 14 so as to provide agood electrical and mechanical securement between the two extendingterminal portions.

As can be seen by reference to the figures, the termi nal member 14 isformed with portion 15 somewhat wider than portion 18 so that retainertabs 21 may be cut and bent out of the plane of terminal 14. The tabs 21of terminal member 14 when so bent down bear down on the portion 11 of aterminal member 5 and hold it against face 8 of the body section.

It will readily be seen that the positioning of the tab 16 behindprojection 17 prevents terminal 14 from falling out of the keyway 13when it is in the position shown in Figure 4. In addition, the tabs 21not only prevent the movement of terminals 14 in the opposite directionin keyways 3 (which for manufacturing purposes are preferably open atboth ends) but also lock the terminal member 5 in position in the bodysection. While the engagement of the two terminals 14 and 5 may not becompletely rigid prior to the wrapping of wire 20 on the terminals, theway that the two terminals 5 and 14 are formed causes the wrapping ofthe wire about them to inherently provide mechanical and electricalconnection. In addition, assembly of the structure is exceedingly easysince it is necessary only to insert and form the terminal 5 and toinsert the terminal 14, with the insertion of terminal 14 inherentlysecuring both terminals in the desired position by the locking action oftab 16 and tabs 21. Thus, the desired type of construction for terminal5, that is, a thin hard resilient metal and the desired type ofconstruction for terminal 14, that is, of relatively thick and softermetal, may be achieved without any need for a special operation bondingthe two together since the bonding operation is performed by thewirew-rapping operation.

It will be seen from the foregoing that my invention provides a tubesocket of the type suitable for wirewrapping operations wherein thedilferent characteristics necessary for the pin contact terminal and forthe wirewrap terminal are readily provided in an economical fashion indifferent members which maintain themselves in a suitable position inthe device and are so positioned relative to each other that theyautomatically are forced into good electrical and mechanical securementupon the performance of the wire-wrapping operation.

While in accordance with the patent statutes I have described What atpresent is considered to be the preferred embodiment of my invention, itwill be apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes andmodifications may be made therein without departing from the invention,and I therefore aim in the appended claims to cover all such changes andmodifications as fall within the true spirit and scope of the invention.

What I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the UnitedStates is:

1. A tube socket comprising a body section of rigid insulating materialhaving a plurality of recesses formed in a face thereof and having aplurality of openings respectively communicating with said recesses, aplurality of contact terminals formed of thin resilient metal andpositioned in said recesses so as to electrically and mechanicallyengage tube pins inserted in said recesses, each of said contactterminals having a portion extending through and out from one of saidopenings, said body section also having a plurality of keyways formedtherein, each of said keyways having a locking indentation formedtherein, a plurality of wire-wrap type terminals formed of relativelythick soft metal positioned respectively in said keyways and each havinga portion extending from said keyways, each of said wire-wrap terminalshaving a projecting tab portion locked in the indentation of itsassociated keyway, the extending portion of each said contact terminalbeing substantially parallel to and contiguous the extending portion ofone of said wire-wrap terminals.

2. The article defined in claim 1 wherein said body section of rigidinsulating material is formed of molded material.

3. The apparatus defined in claim 1 wherein said recesses and saidopenings communicate with opposite faces of said body section.

4. The apparatus defined in claim 1 wherein said recesses and saidkeyways are formed with each recess adjacent the parallel to a keyway.

5. The apparatus defined in claim 1 wherein theportion of said contactterminals within said recesses has a split annular pin-receiving shapewhereby a pin inserted within the tubular shape of said contact terminal5 causes a resilient clamping action of the terminal on said pin.

6. The apparatus defined in claim 1 wherein said recesses and saidopenings are arranged substantially in a circle in said body section,each of said keyways being radially aligned with its associated recess.

7. The apparatus defined in claim 1 wherein said wirewrap terminalextending portions are substantially rectangular in cross-section.

8. A tube socket comprising a body section of rigid insulating materialhaving a plurality of recesses formed in a face thereof and a pluralityof openings formed in the opposite face thereof and respectivelycommunicating with said recesses, a plurality of contact terminalsformed of thin resilient metal and positioned in said recesses so as toelectrically and mechanically engage tube pins inserted in saidrecesses, each of said contact terminals having a first portionextending through one of said openings, a second portion extendingparallel to and contiguous with said other face of said body section,and a third pot tion extending away from said body section, said bodysection having a plurality of keyways formed therein, each said keywayhaving a locking indentation formed therein, a plurality of wire-wrapterminals formed of relatively thick soft metal positioned respectivelyin said keyways and each having a portion of substantially rectangularcross-section extending therefrom, each of said wire-wrap terminalshaving a locking tab secured in the indentation of its associatedkeyway, each of said Wirewrap terminals further having a retaining tabformed thereon extending over said second portion of the associatedcontact terminal thereby to retain said contact terminal in position insaid body section, said third extending portion of each said contactterminal being substantially parallel to and contiguous with theextending portion of one of said wire-wrap terminals.

No references cited.

